The Liberty Times Editorial: Solving the assets issue with votes

KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) claims to have had a difficult background and that she is the poorest candidate the party has ever nominated. No one is interested in these matters; the crucial point is that Hung has a responsibility to let the public know what she will do about the KMT’s assets. Voters have a right to know.

There has been a lot of talk about returning the assets to the public, but the party still has billions of New Taiwan dollars. It refuses to return the money and it continues to use its assets to guarantee that political competition remains unfair and imbalanced — which also applies to intra-party struggles — while Ma, the “son of the party-state” says: “I have not let down Taiwan during these eight years.”

Return the party’s assets to the public? That was an election pledge that went bust as soon as the KMT had cheated voters out of their ballots.

If the party refuses to return the assets to the public, then the master of the nation, the public, has to collect on the debt. Next year, voters must elect a president and a legislature that will collect on the debt for them.

The KMT assets issue is a cancer on the nation’s democracy. If it is not cut out, it will not be possible to settle historical scores, nor will it be possible to turn Taiwan into a full-fledged democracy.

Next year must be a significant step toward the normalization of democracy, and it must lay the foundation for fairness and justice. A return to 2008 cannot be tolerated. When the KMT returned to power, a lot was said about transitional justice, but little was done; a political party that never has understood the importance of apologizing was returned to power, and democracy and Taiwanese were let down.